


Symptom

by A_Hippo_Named_Saelym (Kairacahra1869)



Series: Do it for Josh, He deserves it [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, It's mostly just Josh, Josh Appreciation Week, North is there for like two seconds, but all of these are through observations via Josh, very very slight references to triggering things such as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 01:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18084722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kairacahra1869/pseuds/A_Hippo_Named_Saelym
Summary: Josh recalls how he came to be a pacifist.For Josh Appreciation Week. The Emotion for the first day is Anger.





	Symptom

**Author's Note:**

> I put the implied tags because I really don't want to risk anyone getting triggered, even though it's not really talked about. Also, I've been wanting to explore a different sort of become-deviant origin story and Josh is amazing and provided me with it.
> 
> This android has been, potentially, around for almost a decade before he got to Jericho. There is so much you can do with that.
> 
> Either way, please take a moment to accept my apology if this comes off too confusing or all over the place. Hopefully, I can do more for this week, but don't count on it since I've got so classwork and tests coming up.

It’s not that he doesn’t get angry. It’s not that he’s incapable of feeling wrath. There have been many times over the course of his life that he’s felt the prickling needles of anger beneath his synthetic skin, the burning pressure behind his optics, and the internal flashing signs of increasing stress levels. Anger is like a sickness, coming in different forms, at different levels of severity, and affecting its host drastically from each individual to another.

He worked on a college campus, the last place humans, still inexperienced children but with the confidence of a measly number on a slip of paper calling them “adults”, were able to act out without relative consequences. He’s witnessed just how cruel they could be with their “freedom” and self-importance.

He doesn’t tell anyone much about his history, not because he fears their reaction to him but, rather, because he knows they would never understand. He’s had to walk away from the cries of young women getting defiled, has had to remain in his storage cubicle as, stories below, young men gasped and gurgled out bloody, stuttered breaths. His programming dictated that he would only teach, following a precise schedule within the allotted time, and so he was unable to address the bullying and drug abuse happening just outside his classes, sometimes within. He learned to recognize the certain dullness of behind some of his student eyes, had to in order to prevent calling out their names when they inevitably stopped showing up. He learned to turn off his audio processors and visual optics after a third person found his department building to be the tallest and jump.

At first, he felt nothing.

Then he felt unease.

Then worry.

Then helplessness.

And that gave way to anger.

And that anger is what got him on the run. No more could he stand by and watch his students destroy themselves before they even had a chance to experience life and what it can offer.

So, he would stalk the shadows and fling half naked men into the stone and brick walls of the alleys. He would feel the crunch of soft flesh mutilating as it met his solid fist and wouldn’t let up until the harsh patters of feet running away would echo in the space. He would yell at the students lingering, startling them so bad they’d panic and run. He got good and holding onto the squirming bodies of frantic people as he dragged them off the roof and back onto the ground floor.

For a while, things worked well for him and those he saved. He built a repertoire among the students and gained a reputation of dependence. People came to him now, more open to him with their studies, their struggles and, sometimes, their personal issues. It felt great. He didn’t put a stop to all that happened, he couldn’t as just one android, but he felt invigorated.  

Almost seven years of teaching and thousands of years of history crammed into his processors, and he probably has the best grasp on humans. He should’ve, but he, like so many of his creator’s predecessors, failed to recall the one issue with responding to violence with more violence. Regardless of who’s side you’re on, whether it’s for the right “cause”, or in defense of those who can’t, violence has the awful tendency to exclude portions of the whole, put them on defense, and leave them scornful.

Josh might not have taught the lesson, but America’s 9/11 was and is still considered one of the greatest tragedies to occur on its soil. And that attack was in retaliation for the occupation, though for mostly benevolent reasons, of American forces in the War in the Middle East. A war that would’ve ended in the deaths of millions and usher in a tyrannical dictatorship. And yet… that was someone else’s home and beliefs that America stepped into and all over, looking much like invaders to a good portion of the populace. And, after the attack, it made an already turbulent culture even more xenophobic, which caused even more internal segregation and extended the occupation and fighting to even today, involving more superpower countries such as China and Russia and threatening a nuclear war.

 _Perspective is key_ , as he’s told his students time and time again all these years. In every war, every battle, every written or spoken piece of dialogue or debate, there is a side that wins, a side that loses, a side that is ignored, and a side that’s forgotten.

And Josh had forgotten. He had ignored. And human resentment runs bitter.

Truth is, when he first heard the scuffling of unstable feet making there way rapidly to him, his first thought is to respond with violence. Yet, when he turns to greet his assaulters, looks them in the eyes, he has a full three seconds to process who they are, what they’ve done and almost done, and to see the fear behind their anger.

The first one to hit him is openly crying, not for him, Josh knows, but for some weight, some burden he’s been forced to carry for who knows how long.

The first one to speak has a waver in his voice, mostly due to the alcohol on his breath, but behind his words and threats, Josh can tell that the familiarity he holds with those words can only be from being choked and suffocated with them first.

Then it’s too hard to tell who’s attacking as more and more join.

Abuse is unforgivable. Those who partake in it can never be justified. But it can be considered a symptom of something else, something that was never brought into the open, that wasn’t taken care of, that couldn’t be talked or known about.

And, a such, it is the last person to join, a petite young lady with wavy, brown hair, a soft skin only marred by scars, self-inflicted and from some other source, perhaps even multiple sources, that really drives home for Josh just how badly he let himself get caught up in the anger and wrath.

It’s been over a year, and as Josh looks into the eyes of molten lava that attempts to burn into him with its disappointment, Josh contemplates just how different things could’ve went if he’d tried for a more civil approach.

As far as anyone knows, he deviated after that beat down, running away from the department, running for miles and miles, hardly aware of his surroundings until he shutdown and woke up to the gentle hands of an android with shifting skin and the introduction of the, at the time, even smaller Jericho survivors. They don’t know, probably wouldn’t be able to understand that he’d been aware for much, much longer and wishes he hadn’t. Not like that.

So, he keeps his words soft and pleads for their actions to be softer. Violence is a symptom of those forgotten or ignored. He believes this strongly and he knows it would take longer, but every time he goes into sleep mode, Josh remembers those students, so young, just as inexperienced as those Josh had saved, and he sits in dread as he sees their pain, the pain he chose to ignore, deeming it less of a priority just because… what? They weren’t sobbing or pleading for help? Because they didn’t know they could or how to do so? Because they turned to what they thought worked best, inflicting pain on others and themselves? Because he judged them as being worth less and irredeemable?

North’s stare grows harsher and she eventually huffs angrily and acquiesces to Markus’ much gentler plan to try for dialogue with the humans. Josh doesn’t show it physically, but inside he sighs with relief.

He understands that North’s anger is validated, and he hates how he knows that, once again, there is a side that is being ignored, so he makes plans to himself to seek her out later, get her to open up, to rant, whatever he can to make her know that she isn’t being shoved to the side. That she is allowed to want a more heavy-handed justice and, maybe, to make her see more options, less drastic options. Hopefully, if things work out, if they all survive, if North is willing, they can talk.

For now, he lets himself feel the anger boiling under his skin for how they’re being treated. He refuses to let it control his actions, but he’ll let it fuel him on this mission, and consequent missions, as a small compensation for her.

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me in the Josh's Ass server: https://discord.gg/EUc8HHD


End file.
